Quote:
Originally Posted by Targan
I've always found the American use of the word "gas" to describe petrol as being kind of odd. Petrol's not even a gas when it's burned in an internal combustion engine, it's a fine mist. I guess it must have originally been an abbreviation of "gasoline".
....
Way to go mangling a perfectly good language, Americans!
|
Actually it might be more proper to blame the brits (at least for the name gasoline)
Quote:
|
Gasolene was first used in an advert in the British newspaper, the Hampshire Telegraph & Sussex Chronicle in 1863. The first use of gasoline to be found in America is in an 1864 Act of Congress which declared a tax on the oil.
|
it looks like a corruption of Cazeline named after British importer John Cassell. A Dublin shopowner had a counterfeit version named the same, which when challenged he added a slash to the C (making it a G)
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2...n-of-gasoline/